Karrin Murphy's home

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In Summer Knight, Murphy's house is in a neighborhood called Bucktown. It's a tiny place surrounded by a neat littly lawn. Murphy owns it since her grandmother left it to her. The door was made of re-inforced steel, like Harry Dresden's. The house has a strong threshold, since it has a life of its own with a history. It was a home not just a place to live. Inside, the living room was decorated in soft greens and yellows, and lots of ruffles on the curtains and the couch. There were beautiful old doilies everywhere that looked well cared for. Murphy's gun cleaning kit and holster were on the end's table and a pair of Japanese daisho was over the fireplace, a long katana and a short wakizashi.[1]

In Dead Beat, it is a dinky little place, and resides in a neighborhood built before Edison's lights. Harry describes it as really cute, with worn but well cared for Victorian furniture, and with lots of doilies decorating the place. Over the mantel was a pair of curved Japanese swords, the only Murphy-like concession to the decorating scheme.[2]

Harry explains to Waldo Butters what a threshold is, and how Murphy's home has a strong one. A home has to have history, family, emotions worked into the wood. Murphy's clan had that home for better than a hundred years and lived in for every one of them. The threshold is solid and would keep out the Erlking.[3]

Ghost Story Murphy's house is a compact colonial, single story, square, solid and neat. There's flower garden with enough flowers for a much bigger house, also her grandmother's. Karrin hires a service. Karrin upgraded it with vinyl siding, new windows, and modern insulation. It looked like it could last another hundred years easily. The House has been heavily warded.[4]

In Summer Knight, Harry goes to Murphy's place to ask her help getting information to solve Mab's case (that the White Council pressured him into taking). Murphy makes Harry cross the threshold to prove he's him and not an imposter demon like the one last year, Kravos, that disguised itself as Harry, in Grave Peril.[1]

Murphy had been drinking and looking at wedding photos of her first marriage when she was age seventeen. Harry told her his story about Elaine Mallory to get Karrin to talk to him. An obituary page from the Tribune, says her first husband Gregory Taggart, died of cancer, and he never let her know he was sick. Plus, she's having night terrors about what Kravos did to her. There wasn't anything she could do to stop it and that's what scares her.[1]

In Small Favor, Murphy's place is flooded with wardens: four in the living room, two in he kitchen, two outside under veils. Anastasia Luccio talks to Harry about Ivy. She's worried that Dresden is too affectionate with her.[6]